This is the second tutorial of our spiral dreamcatcher series. This time I’m going to show you how to make the sun dreamcatcher! I call it “sun dreamcatcher” because the pattern looks like a spiral sun in the middle with bright spikes on the outside.
If you haven’t already, check out the first part of our series: How to make a spiral dreamcatcher >>
You need:
a hoop (available here*) or a simple wreath
colorful yarn (I used crochet thread available here*), wool or waxed cotton cord
scissors
a blunt needle (available here*)
If you have some willow branches at hand, you can make your own little wreath like I did. How to make a basic willow wreath >>
How to make a sun dreamcatcher
For the sun dreamcatcher we will combine two basic patterns: The simple spiral pattern (like I showed you in the spiral dreamcatcher tutorial) and the triangle pattern. I will show you both techniques in this tutorial. If you want to, you can check out the spiral dreamcatcher tutorial first, where go into a little bit more depth with the spiral pattern.
Let’s start with the triangle pattern! 🙂
Cut off a long piece of orange thread (I used crochet yarn available here*) and secure one end to the hoop. Divide the hoop into several equal sections. One section should be about 3-4 fingers wide. (How many sections you need, depends entirely on the size of your hoop. With my hoop I used 10 sections)
Take the loose end and and loop it OVER the hoop to the back, bring it back UNDER and out BETWEEN the hoop and the thread.
Continue to weave your way all around the hoop and take care to make all your segments as even as possible.
If you have finished one round, make your last loop exactly next to the first one.
Begin the next round by making the first loop just to the RIGHT of the knot from the previous round.
Start using a blunt needle at this point. It will make everything a lot easier. 🙂
Move on to the next knot and make one loop on each side. Make sure that the knots are positioned very close to each other once you pull them tight.
Continue all around the hoop like that. Always make loops on each side of the knots.
In the next round, loop around both threads. (in the round after that, loop around all 3… and so on) Notice how there is a little gap between both loops. The gap will become wider with each round.
Continue all around and always make a loop on both sides of the knots.
After a few rounds, the triangle shape becomes visible. – Or in our case the little orange spikes of the sun! 🙂
Continue to weave around until the triangles touch at the ends. Secure your thread with a knot and cut it off.
Start a new round with red thread. Secure the thread in the middle where the triangles touch. Loop your way around the hoop, just like you see in the picture. Make every loop just where the triangles touch.
Pull the thread tight and try to keep a little bit of tension on it, as you weave your way around.
Finish your round again with making the last loop close to the first one.
Again you make the first loop of the next round just on the right side of the first knot. Loop just around the red thread.
Then you go on as you did before. Weave your way around by making loops on each side of the knots from the previous round.
Run out of thead? No problem!
If you get to a point where you run out of thread, there is a little trick to hide the loose ends.
Secure the new thread to the old just after you make the loop on the RIGHT side of a knot.
On the next round, you can hide the loose ends and the bulky knot UNDER the new loop.
Weave around with the red color until all the triangles touch again. Secure the thread with a knot.
Choose a bright yellow color next and start again with the triangle pattern. But this time stop before the triangles touch! You want to leave a gap that is about as wide as the tip of your finger.
Introducing: the spiral pattern
Now we switch it up a little. Start the next round with a loop on the right side of the triangle. But instead of looping around all the threads you SKIP the first one and just loop around all the remaining ones.
Also, from now on you make your loops ONLY on the right side of the triangles. Skip the left side completely.
If you saw our previous tutorial (Spiral dreamcatcher), this might be familiar to you, because from now on we are creating a SPIRAL PATTERN.
If you pull the first loop tight, you will notice a little gap between the new thread and the triangle pattern. This is just like it should be.
Continue all around like this.
In the next round SKIP the first TWO threads. From now on, you skip one additional thread each round. If you get lost, just look where you made your loop in the previous round. Your now loop should be one thread down.
This is what your pattern will look like after a few rounds.
Always skip one additional thread each round.
After about 20 rounds with the yellow, change to an orange color.
Weave about 5 rows with the orange color and then switch back to the yellow. This will create little orange “spikes” in the pattern.
Continue with the yellow color until there ist just a little gap left in the middle. You can see clearly now why I call this a “spiral pattern”.
Switch to a red color for the middle part. At this point there will be hardly any space left between the loops. Now you can skip two threads each round instead of just one.
Continue your rounds as long as you can and then weave the last gap shut. Secure your thread with a knot and weave the loose end underneath some loops to hide them.
Your sun dreamcatcher is finished! At least I think it looks like a sun with the spiky rays and the bright colors. 🙂
Experiment with different colors our the number of triangles to get different results. Check back with us in a few days for the third part in the series: The flower dreamcatcher
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This post is also available in de_DE.
